Maya Healers: A Thousand Dreams explores the ancient healing practices of the Maya people of Guatemala. Over the course of a decade, photographer and writer Fran Antmann gained the trust of families and native healers in mountain villages surrounding Lake Atitlan. She was allowed to visit sacred places and witnessed a tradition in which healers are believed to have connections with the supernatural and to derive their power and knowledge from dreams. These rituals survive today, despite being forbidden during a genocide of the Maya people committed over several decades until 1996 by government forces. Antmann captures this history of healing, documenting it in 100 black and white photographs woven together with moving, personal stories in her book, recently published by Nirala Publications.

As a young child, I naively thought that parents have all the answers—that they have everything figured out. As a father of two, I now fully recognize that parents often have no idea what they are doing. Why else would parenting books be so popular? We don’t have the answers. We are constantly scrambling for them and trying to work out solutions. Watermelons Are Not Strawberries narrates photographer Sandra Bacchi’s personal experiences as a mother, and speaks universally to some of the anxieties associated with raising kids. Through Bacchi’s lens, we feel her connection to her daughters—that of awareness and empathy. We get a sense of the vulnerabilities of both parent and child, as well as adaptations necessary to overcome (what seem to be daily) unanticipated challenges. The title of the project refers to a statement made by one of her daughters, who has a strawberry allergy. Rather than being discouraged, she creatively imagines watermelons as strawberries and pretends to eat them. She is also figuring things out.

In the remote village of Yar-Sale in Northern Siberia, lives a group of elderly women. They were once part of a nomadic community of reindeer herders. However, in their old age, they spend most of their days in seclusion, isolated from the world they loved and their community. While men are usually encouraged to remain within the migrating community and maintain their social roles, the women often face the struggles of old age alone.

“Aunty!,” an exhibit curated by Laylah Amatullah Barrayn and Catherine E. McKinley, reveals photography’s role as a tool or weapon when investigating identity and empowerment.